By Farahdiba Abdullah
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a new innovation that will affect the way companies are being governed and change business models as well. In Malaysia, AI adoption is still at infancy stage or mainly at awareness level. Based on the content analysis by International Journal of Business, Economics and Law (2017), an approximately 1% or less than 20 companies with top market capitalization have mentioned “artificial intelligence”, “big data”, and “machine learning” in their annual reports. Even large companies with high capital in local market cannot be a first mover in new technology and AI innovations. The latest industrial revolution now requires AI as its main catalyst that relies heavily on human capital.
The government initiative to prepare the country towards AI innovations is by implementing 5G Demonstration Projects (5DP). MCMC (2019) indicated that business cases of AI and data analysis will be focusing more on digital healthcare and manufacturing industries in National 5G Task Force Focus. As an example, 5G connected ambulance that is equipped with AI to find clearer routes during emergencies. For manufacturers, AI and predictive analytics will analyze high density data about the whole production to optimize their resources. However, the AI implementations are still inadequate and not considered as a key driver in 5DP. National AI framework which is strong backbone towards AI innovation was still incomplete by the end of 2019.
Evidently, the government plans are unable to reach the full potential of 5G technology which lead to difficulty in building edge-native AI that requires beyond 5G (B5G) or 6G integration. During B5G, AI will play a critical role in designing and optimizing our daily applications from “connected things” to “connected intelligence” by 2030. A new paradigm of digital transformation will change the way to capture data about our entire life by using nervous system and wireless cognition. AI-based wireless system is vital as a core of business function for driving highly accurate positioning capabilities in the market. The companies that utilize AI innovations will immediately realise that it is hard to retain market capitalization and incur high costs for business sustainability
The government must force the top companies in Malaysia to accept new innovations and implement research and development of AI. In addition to that, the government could also provide various tax incentives to encourage them to adopt advanced technology so that they can move further from infancy stage and bring our country onwards to reach Industrial Revolution 4.0.